Shame on you, ABC News.

Shame on you, Charles Gibson and George Stephanopolous.

They had a chance to ask Democratic presidential hopefuls Sen. Hillary Clinton and Sen. Barack Obama some tough questions, and all ABC News did was regurgitate the questions about Obama&8217;s former pastor and his statements from over a month ago, Obama&8217;s statement that many small-town voters who are bitter over their economic circumstances &8220;cling to guns or religion or antipathy to people who aren&8217;t like them,&8221; the hard-hitting American flag pin on his lapel and finally his association in Chicago with former members of the Weather Underground, a radical group from the 1960s.

Was ABC kidding? Are these the questions at the forefront of concerns for everyday Americans?

How about a couple bigger items such as the war in Iraq, the economy, universal health care, hunger, gas prices, terrorism, the environment, taxes, education, deficit spending and perhaps 100 other things the American public would have liked to have asked. These are factors of their everyday lives, not sideshows.

It was not much different for ABC&8217;s questions for Clinton, as she was asked about and defended her shaky story about taking on sniper fire abroad during her husband Bill Clinton&8217;s time in office. How is this an issue?

Smoke and mirrors is all we got from ABC News. This approach is why TV journalism is giving the rest of journalism such a black eye. Like how pro wrestling is called entertainment and not a sport, can we start calling TV news entertainment and not journalism? Because that&8217;s why they harp on those issues over and over.

If they want to be real journalists, can they please ask some tough questions that the American citizens want to hear about?

On the Republican side, TV reporters also are not giving tough questions of John McCain.

We get National Enquirer type questions like &8220;Is he too old&8221; or &8220;Did his wife have a facelift?&8221;

TV reporters have to start asking better questions. ABC, CBS, NBC, Fox and CNN all need to get serious to help America pick a president.

To borrow a political phrase &8220;the time is now.&8221;